His mother smirked. “And I’ll make sure when the time comes my son is covered just as well.”
He threw his hands in the air. This was getting out of control.
“Out.”
“Don’t be that way,” his mother said. “Love and attraction don’t last. It never does.”
“For you and Dad. I’m not like either of you.”
His mother looked around the hotel room. “You’re not that far off.”
“Not a good way for me to want you to meet Natalie.”
“But you’ll do it anyway,” his mother said. “Because you won’t want me to think I won by getting under your skin.”
He turned and walked to the glass doors hoping the bright sun over the ocean would soothe the storm building inside of him.
She didn’t used to get under his skin as much as his father. Not until recently.
This impromptu visit was adding to the historical tally fast.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said.
“I know you will. Rylie is looking forward to meeting you.”
He held back the snarl, and would have slammed the door if it didn’t have a soft closure.
How the hell was he going to explain this to Natalie?
The last thing he wanted was more pressure on her.
She’d already done him a huge favor with the trip last weekend, asking her to come to her place of employment when his mother assumed something about her that wasn’t true would not go over well.
He picked his phone up to get this over with, sent her a text to call him when she had a minute, that there might be a change of plans tonight.
He wanted to be a dick and leave his mother hanging, but deep down he’d always longed for a relationship with one of his parents.
Anything. Something that he could call normal.
This was far from it, but his mother wasn’t nearly as outrageous as his father was in a one-on-one setting.
He could make ground rules and he would.
Fifteen minutes went by before his phone rang. He picked it up, saw Natalie’s name flashing and slid his finger across the button.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Did you get called into work? Have a new puzzle you’ve got to put together? The stock market is closed today, so I know that didn’t crash.”
He laughed. “I’m glad you’re in a good mood. None of those things. I had a surprise visitor not that long ago who is going to shake up my plans again.”
“Who?” she asked.
“My mother and her younger boyfriend, though I didn’t see him. She knocked on my door.”
“Did your mother know you were here?”
“No,” he said. “She ran into my father at the courthouse earlier in the week. God only knows how that conversation went. But he’d said he met you and since they’ve met no woman I’ve been with before, she had to say she could meet you.” There was silence on the other end. “Natalie?”
“I’m here. How did she find out what hotel you were at and your room number without you knowing?”
